Re: paleonet The threat of the Publishing Crises to Paleontology

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Re Palarch

1. Yes, if you're a vertebrate palaeontologist. 

2. 'Palaeontologica Electronica' and 'Carnets de Géologie' have been going for longer than Palarch, I think they deserve a mention first.

I of course would support Society and online-only journals ahead of Elsevier etc. However, regarding online journals, there is a big problem. For researchers at the start of their careers, who don't have a nice permanent job, at the minute electronic-only journals are not an option. It's not about the readership, it's about impact factor and prestige. If my CV has two Palaeo Electronica papers and one Carnets de Géologie paper on it, and someone else's CV has, say, one Precambrian Research and two EPSL papers, I'm not in with a chance if we both apply for the same job or grant. People go straight to the journal titles - I suppose they think it's the best measure of a paper's worth. So when I come to publish it'll be Palaeontology and Journal of the Geological Society - if they get rejected by Nature, obviously ;-)
I would of course fully support the online journals, I read both of those I mentioned plus a few others, and hopefully I will publish in them in the future. But until established researchers start publishing important papers in them, and ISI impact factor goes up, it's not an option, sadly.

Oh, and you can't really ignore papers in Elsevier journals. But don't submit papers to them, don't subscribe to them, and don't review for them should be enough. If enough people do it. Boycotting Elsevier was first mentioned to me two years ago, and it doesn't seem to be working so far.

Breandán




----- Original Message -----
From: "Xavier Panades I Blas" <cogombra@hotmail.com>
To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
Subject: Re: paleonet The threat of the Publishing Crises to Paleontology
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 09:24:45 +0000

> 
> Hi,
> 
> 
> 
> An alternative to such problem has already been applied: PalArch 
> foundation (http://www.palarch.nl/).
> A journal in electronic format only and free to download the three 
> first month. The people involved are recognised scientits, and the 
> articles review is quick. Hence, cheap to produce, easy to obtain 
> and published, and very enviromentalist.
> 
> 
> I would re-fine the problem as "paleonet The threat of the 
> PRESTIGIAL Publishing Crises to Paleontology"
-- 
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